Five experts share practical steps toward a healthier life
Health at Every Size (HAES) — you’ve heard the term tossed around, your friend keeps quoting lines from the approach, but you’re still wondering: What is it?
HAES is a weight-neutral approach that shifts the focus from body size and weight to health, because no, weight and health are not the same thing. HAES supports improved healthy behaviors for people of all sizes, without using weight as a mediator.
Diet culture has made us believe that health is a body size and a way of eating but in reality, health is much more complex and multi-faceted; it can’t be defined by any one factor. Many factors that contribute to our overall health — genetics, socioeconomic status, and environment — have nothing to do with how we look, what we eat, and how much we exercise.
Health at every size does not mean that every size is healthy; it means that people can be healthy at any size. It challenges the value of dieting, or pursuing weight loss, for health. But for so many of us, health has been boiled down to weight. When you take away that focus, what’s left?
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